Plague, Fear, and Politics in San Francisco's Chinatown

Guenter B. Risse

Publication Year: 2012

People and bubonic plague have a long and tragic history. When health officials in San Francisco thought they discovered plague in their city’s Chinatown in 1900, they responded with intrusive, controlling, and arbitrary measures that touched off a sociocultural clash still relevant today. Guenter B. Risse’s history of this epidemic features the tale of desperately ill Wong Chut King, believed to be the initial person infected, and is the first to incorporate the voices of those living in Chinatown at the time.
Lasting until 1904, the plague in San Francisco's Chinatown reignited racial prejudices, re-sparked efforts to remove the Chinese from their district, and created new tensions among local, state, and federal public health officials quarreling over the presence of the deadly disease. Risse's rich, nuanced narrative of the event draws from a variety of sources, including Chinese-language news reports and other accounts. He addresses the ecology of Chinatown, the approaches taken by Chinese and Western medical practitioners, and the effects of quarantine plans on Chinatown and its residents. Risse explains how the presence of plague threatened California’s agricultural economy and San Francisco’s leading commercial role with Asia, discusses why it brought on a wave of fear mongering that drove perceptions and intervention efforts, and describes how Chinese residents organized and successfully opposed government quarantines and evacuation plans in federal court.
In probing public health interventions in the context of one of the most visible ethnic communities in United States history, Plague, Fear, and Politics in San Francisco’s Chinatown offers insight into the clash of Eastern and Western cultures in a time of medical emergency.

Cover

Title Page, Copyright

Contents

Acknowledgments

This book had an unusually long gestation. Beginning in 1987, I delivered a series
of historical lectures devoted to the impact of epidemics, including plague.
These presentations occurred not only at my own institution, the University of
California, San Francisco, but also at the University of California, Los Angeles,
Yale University, Loma Linda University, the University of Wisconsin, and in
East and West Berlin....

Introduction

Located at the intersection of powerful American ideologies— race and xenophobia,
dread of disease,1 and modern sanitation— this study seeks to enhance
our understanding of a singular episode in American public health history:
the appearance and management of bubonic plague in San Francisco’s
Chinatown between 1900...

Part I / Before Plague

1. The People of Tang in San Francisco

San Franciscans identified him by his Cantonese name: Wong Chut King,1
also nicknamed Chick Ging.2 His sketchy life story suggests that he fit the
traditional stereo type of a thrifty, hardworking Chinese migrant whose California
dream of riches remained tragically unfulfilled.3 An ordinary middle-aged
laborer or “coolie” living...

2. Guarding Life and the Way of Death

Joyous New Year celebrations marking the arrival of 1900 failed to cheer Wong
Chut King, in spite of the monotonous and ear-piercing sound resembling
the “grinding of sleepless teeth” created by the Pan Ching Wo pipers on Portsmouth
Square.1 For months, he had felt indisposed and frightened by the specter
of illness, a sign...

4. Officials, Mandarins, and the Press

In 1900, San Francisco was the largest metropolis west of St. Louis, with a
population of 342,782. The city by the bay remained a point of convergence for
new arrivals from the rest of the nation and abroad, with nearly 20 percent of its
population foreign...

Part II. Plague

5. Early Scenes of Terror

On Wednesday, March 7, 1900, Chinatown’s early risers, including cooks,
waiters, servants, and porters heading for their jobs outside the district,
discovered that ropes encircled the space between Broadway and California,
Kearny and Stockton streets. Two policemen on every corner demanded that
everybody turn around...

6. The Siege Continues

Since an unvaccinated, and thus unprotected, Chinatown remained a potential
plague-infested district in the heart of California, Surgeon General Walter
Wyman brought the matter to the attention of President William McKinley.
The result was presidential authorization to implement regulations contained
in the Act of 1890...

7. Plague Goes Underground

With demands for Joseph Kinyoun’s resignation growing louder in commercial
and Republican po liti cal circles, the embattled federal quarantine
officer requested an outside investigation of his official acts in an effort
to clear his reputation.1 Walter Wyman obliged, and in late December 1900
appointed assistant surgeon...

8. Rumors and Realities

Following Mayor James Phelan’s announcement in the summer of 1901 that
he would not seek another term, the Marine Hospital Ser vice team operating
in San Francisco anticipated changes in their relationship with local health
officials. Phelan’s decision came after a bitter two- month strike that pitted the
new, antiunion Employers...

9. National Threat

The Congressional Act of July 1, 1902, establishing the Public Health and
Marine Hospital Service, stipulated that the surgeon general call conferences
if state and territorial health officials so requested. Because eleven states
demanded a meeting to discuss the plague situation in California, Wyman arranged
a session for...

10. Sanitarians Claim Victory

After replacing Surgeon Arthur H. Glennan at the helm of the U.S. Public
Health Ser vice in San Francisco in May 1903, Rupert Blue kept a keen eye
on the po liti cal developments in the city and their potential impact on the joint
sanitary venture being conducted in Chinatown and its immediate borders. To
everyone’s surprise, Michael...

Epilogue

On April 18, 1906, at 5:12 a.m., a powerful earthquake awoke the residents
in San Francisco. A succession of shocks lasting about a minute twisted
buildings, toppling and crashing them, sending clouds from the falling rubble
into the early morning sky. A spur of the estimated 7.9- magnitude quake ran up
the hill at the southern...

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